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June 9[edit]

How do you search for filenames in My Computer window?[edit]

Without it being the 1st string? For example, if I type in chemistry, then files like chemistry-this, and chemistry-that, will show, but not biochemistry. Trying wildcards doesn't work: *chemistry. I note that . is a partial wildcard, for extensions. So If I want to return Excel files, then typing .xls will show all files ending in .xls, but typing in .chemistry will not bring up biochemistry. Obviously, I understand there's a logic to this, typing in a, will show all files starting with the letter a, and you likely would not want all filenames that have the letter a, but just wondering what other features can you search without it being the 1st letter phrase? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 11:18, 9 June 2021 (UTC).[reply]

The *[string] format actually works on my PC, at least for Windows Explorer. I'm running Windows 10, update as of March 8, 2021. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:36, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if this exactly answers the OP's question, but have you considered a dedicated search application such as in our List of search engines#Desktop search engines? They often have more functionality than Windows. Some of these (including free ones) are reviewed here. MinorProphet (talk) 20:03, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So what's going on is that the string you type into the search bar is your search term. It's going to look for whole words in filenames that match that string. So that's why it finds chemistry-1.doc for example, but not biochemistry.pdf when you type in chemistry.

When you start that string with a period, the search function interprets that as you looking for files with whose extension matches the rest of what you typed. So that's why it's finding .xls files (pre-2010 Excel spreadsheets) when you type .xls, but not finding anything when you type .chemistry; you don't have any files with the .chemistry filetype.

So the answer here is as Baseball Bugs pointed out: Use a wildcard character. In this case, the asterix tells the search function to match any number (including 0, I believe) of any characters in that place. So you can search for chemistry* and that will return any file whose filename begins with chemistry, regardless of what, if anything, comes after. You could narrow this down to older Excel spreadsheets by entering chemistry*.xls which will match any file whose name starts with chemistry and ends with .xls. If you wanted to find the file biochemistry.xls, the following searches would work:

*chemistry*
*chemistry.xls
biochemistry*
.xls

and of course;

biochemistry.xls

There's a lot more to windows search that you can do. There are boolean operators (AND, OR and the like), filters for tags and certain file properties, date matching, and even another wildcard, ? which matches any single character. Here is a link to Microsoft's documentation of their Advanced Query Syntax, or AQS. This explains all the different ways you can tighten or broaden your searches. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:35, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You know what the wildcard * does work for me now. I gotta think about the cases if it didn't, if there were any. Damm, now I feel like an idiot for asking. 67.165.185.178 (talk) 15:08, 10 June 2021 (UTC).[reply]

The only stupid questions are the ones we don't ask.

And questioning the absolute superiority of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard over that incorrigible knave, Kirk. I mean, seriously, what kind of name is "James Tiberius", anyways? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:15, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]